Sun Microsystems Inc has been trying to figure out what to do with its 1996 Integrated Micro Products Plc acquisition (CI No 3,082) and has come to the conclusion that the unit is primarily a telecommunications company rather than a fault-tolerant systems house. Integrated Micro, the UK builder of Motorola 680×0 and Sparc-based fault-tolerant servers, is to be re-baptized as the TIPG Telecommunications Infrastructure Platform Group within Sun’s enterprise server and storage group. It will be charged with creating hardware and software products for sale to the telecommunications companies using Integrated Micro and other re- packaged Sun technologies, from low-end systems to enterprise configurations. Sun has previously said it would use the high- availability technologies to address the financial markets and it will do, but not through TIPG. While the unit is currently still working on an UltraSparc version of its current SuperSparc-based fault-tolerant systems, the company says other technology, such as hot-pluggable boards, is being incorporated across mainstream Sun product lines. It believes that the telecommunications firms are crying out for packaged systems which they won’t have to spend months customizing. Motorola, which resells 680×0 FTSeries versions of Integrated Micro’s box in its switch systems, accounted for 56% of the company’s business in 1995. It was less than half in 1996, though Integrated Micro says the Motorola account is still growing, but not as fast as the overall business, which it claims exceeded the $25m it had forecast. Integrated Micro isn’t doing any further 680×0 designs, though it will continue to enhance existing models. The vast majority of Integrated Micro sales are in the US, with a smattering in Japan. Integrated Micro’s sales headquarters are now in Dallas, Texas, though the unit still does UK development in Consett, County Durham, and in Slough, Berkshire. Its new Greencroft-based manufacturing plant in Durham is being run as an extension of Sun’s Linlithgow plant in Scotland.
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